Archive of Our Own

The manor wasn’t usually silent. 

Not that Damian minded the quiet, but it wasn’t something that he was used to. His father was always up to something, having trained himself years before Damian was born to work on a very tight ( non-existent , Jason would have snorted) schedule of sleep and, even when Bruce Wayne wasn’t up and about, Alfred usually was. But there was a brief period of time, in the space between when patrol would end and the work day would start, that Damian found Wayne Manor absolutely silent . 

Back when Damian had started as Robin, when Richard had been Batman in a suit that was painfully too heavy for his shoulders, the Manor had felt like it was filled with ghosts. Perhaps it had been, back then, but between every shadow there had been a whisper, almost, of the life that had once been within the walls. Richard had been different then, too. In a way that Damian almost couldn’t reconcile with the man that he had grown to look up to. But the complexities between how Richard handled his grief and the way the family had broken down to pieces without his father around wasn’t something that Damian had much concentration to think on at the present moment. 

“I mean,” Jon was saying, his hair tousled in the way that told Damian he had been running his fingers through it all night. It was getting lighter, as time went on - as Jon spent more time in Smallville in the sun, freckles forming on his cheeks an echo of where the sun had kissed at them all spring. The football season had started, but Jon had quit the sport he had once loved so much his sophomore year and chosen, instead, to give baseball a try. Damian wasn’t particularly interested in either sport but Jon looked… better in the baseball uniform than he did with football pads on his shoulders. “Sarah broke up with him . And not for, like, a dumb reason or anything.” 

They had been on the topic of Jordan for the better part of an hour. It would have been annoying if it was coming from anyone else. But Jon’s worry was endearing, adorable, made Damian’s face do that thing that usually had Stephanie poking at his cheeks and cooing. Damian had to agree, in the end, that Sarah Cushing breaking up with Jordan Kent wasn’t nearly the end of the world event Jordan was treating it as. She hadn’t felt appreciated, important, her life was constantly threatened, and Jordan had the unique ability to be insensitive so often that it lost its adorable charm. There had been a tension between them ever since Jon had been forced out of the closet. There had been tension between them probably since the beginning, but Timothy had told him that pointing that out to Jon (or worse, Jordan ) would be incredibly un cool . Jon was protective, the same way that Jason was, and Jordan was only too good at playing the victim. “They’ll get back together by the end of the year.” Damian predicted because, while he could see the fractured part between them he also knew they had an attraction not unlike the one between Father and Selina Kyle. 

They were inevitable. 

They would undoubtedly keep finding their way to one another even as they grew older. Maybe they’d split a few kids between each other, maybe they’d have some with other people. 

Jon snorted that derisive noise that Damian knew he picked up from Damian himself, and ran his fingers through his hair again, fluffing it at the top and twisting the curls of his bangs between his slender fingers. “You’re probably right.” 

“I’m always right.” Damian argued lightly and crossed his leg more comfortably under himself, careful of the bruises on his shins and thighs from the brawl they had broken up earlier that night. Moonlight streamed in through the bay window, warming the skin of Damian’s forearm as it leaned against the cool glass. Spring in Gotham was very much unlike the unrelenting heat of the desert Damian had spent the first ten years of his life. But the city wasn’t quite as dreary as the tourism board made it seem. Like everywhere else in New Jersey, it had sun and heat and rain and snow. It had a beach that was pretty well maintained, multiple botanic gardens that blossomed into beautiful landscapes of greenery and flowers every summer, and some of the best Italian food outside of Boston or Italy. If it just so happened to have a thriving criminal underground well… what city in the world didn’t. 

“You’re not always right.” Jon retorted just like Damian knew he would and it made him smile, soft and gentle. 

That was something Damian was still getting used to, being soft and gentle. Allowing it within himself. It wasn’t something his mother had ever stomped out of him, not the way his Grandfather had tried, but she hadn’t quite nurtured it either. And Father was terrible at teaching such things to grow. Damian wasn’t sure who it was that had taught him how to be such a way, if it was Richard comforting him with hugs and a voice that never judged whenever Damian woke up from a nightmare, or Jason ruffling his hair even as Damian grew to his same height, or Timothy making sure the kitchen was always stocked with the tea Damian had always loved, or Stephanie bringing him to art museums, or Cass sitting beside him during movie nights, shoulders pressed tightly together, or Duke making him the best veggie burger Damian had ever had. Or if it was Jon, with his soft laugh, his light gaze, his gentle kisses, the way he let Damian press him into his mattress and lean over him and would only pull him closer when the sharp edges that made Damian into who he was threatened to pierce his skin. 

So Damian smiled at him, soft and gentle and warm and Damian barely resisted the urge to drag a fingertip down the side of his phone screen to trace the image of him. Real, breathing, both soft and hard. 

“I think he’s upset,” Jon mumbled after a long moment of silence stretched between the two of them. 

“I’m not the expert on human emotions here,” Damian drawled. “But that seems like an accurate reaction to having your girlfriend break up with you.” 

Jon’s eyes rolled and he shifted, just a little, so that his back was more firmly pressed against his bedroom wall. He had to talk softly (in fact, Damian was shocked they hadn’t been interrupted yet) in fear of alerting either of his parents (super-hearing aside) to the fact that he was still awake. Damian didn’t have that fear - Father had fallen asleep in the chair in his study, at an angle that would no doubt have him rubbing at his neck all morning - and Alfred wouldn’t be up for another hour. He would have to get some sleep of his own, soon enough, but Damian treasured the moments the Manor was quiet save for his voice and Jon’s quiet breathing. “He had this whole… prom-posal thing for her planned out.”

Damian wrinkled his forehead. “Prom-posal?” 

“He was going to ask her after a game or something. Play a song. Make a sign.” Jon waved a hand as though the plan was inconsequential. As though he didn’t see the point of making a big deal out of it. 

Which meant that he wanted to make a big deal out of it. 

Damian had the distinct impression that he had been focusing on the wrong part of their conversation. 

“That seems excessive.” Damian said simply to say something, his mind stuttered to a stop. This was the problem, perhaps, of the two of them having these talks when Damian was more exhausted from patrol and his general day then he wanted to let on. Jon wasn’t the type to drop bombshells without considering the consequences of how he dropped them and Damian was usually much quicker on the uptake. 

Except he seemed to miss this one. 

This was like when Jon had mentioned, off hand, the Homecoming game back when they had started dating. Damian hadn’t gone, Jon had gotten upset but in that way of his that made Damian painfully aware that he was used to being disappointed, and Cassandra had told him in a very soft, patient voice, that he had probably wanted Damian to attend but he hadn’t wanted to ask and risk the chance of a no. “The whole idea of a prom-posal is a bit overdone,” Jon agreed. “But I think it’s sweet.” He shrugged uselessly, picking at something off screen. “That he wanted to go with her badly enough to make her something to ask.” 

The thing was that Damian was good at a lot of things. He could draw really well, he knew twenty different ways to kill a man and make it look like they had died of natural causes, he was a damn good Robin. But Damian was still very, very bad at being a… real boy . He winced to himself, Richard would look frankly offended if he had ever heard Damian refer to himself as such but the fact remained. Damian Wayne was good at a lot of things. He wasn’t the best at being just Damian Wayne, seventeen year old heartthrob. And Prom was something that Damian had known about, in passing, but never stopped to think about going to. It happened at night, on a friday, and it was no different than any of the galas Damian had ever attended except, of course, that it would be filled with teenagers and bad music and food that Damian would have to pretend he liked. 

It would also be public and, if there was one thing that Father had done since Damian had been shoved out of the metaphorical closet, it was make sure that Damian and Jon were left alone by the media. Going to Prom would make waves that the Wayne Enterprises PR team couldn’t bury. There would be pictures of them whether they liked it or not and Damian was used to it. 

Jon wasn’t. 

Damian could ask, but he knew what the answer would be by the way Jon was steadily avoiding his gaze and pushing his teeth just a bit into the plush outline of his bottom lip. Asking without asking. Expecting and used to the no. If he never asked , then he never had to deal with the sting of a rejection. 

“When is it?” Damian was brave. He had to be brave in order to be Robin. But he had never felt as much fear coiling in his stomach as he did when Jon mumbled out the Friday three weeks away. Three weeks was more than enough time for Damian to figure something out. Three weeks was…. The Titans meet up. 

The thing was that Damian had a very busy schedule. Between school, training, vigilantism, and having a boyfriend, time with Jon was almost impossible to get. They found time between games and world ending experiences, when Damian was too injured or when Timothy got that look in his eye and he’d strong arm Father into giving Damian a weekend off. In the grand scheme of things, Damian going on a date with his boyfriend was the lowest priority. And Jon never asked. He never pushed. He never begged for time even when Damian wanted him to. He was good , in a way that Damian was pretty sure he didn’t deserve. “You’re going to be in San Francisco that weekend.” Jon said quietly, like uttering the words would make them all the more real. 

Damian felt every single mile between them, then. He felt the same way his heart had twinged every single time he had left Kansas behind since that first time. He tugged his knee closer to his chest, wrapped his arm around it in a grip tight enough to his bruised shin bone twinge. “Yeah.” He rested his cheek on the limb and observed the reaction. 

Jon mustered up a smile, crooked and not at all shaky, a better actor than Damian knew his family gave him credit for, and shrugged. “The good news is Jordan’s not going now either.” He spoke it like he was teasing, looking for the bright side even if it didn’t reach his eyes. “We can stay home and play video games or something all night.” 

--

The thing was that once Damian had started thinking about it he couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was in the back of his mind all week, from the moment they had finally hung up the phone and he had managed to fall asleep to the perfectly timed jab to the nose of Condiment Man that had the cartilage breaking in half. Jon wanted to go to Prom. Jon would never ask to go to Prom. Damian had become predictable enough in his priorities that Jonathan Kent had begun to believe that he wasn’t more important than literally anything else Damian had planned with his life. 

Which… was something else for Damian to examine. 

Hopefully when he was alone. 

He would list it out for himself, whatever it was he was feeling, however he was thinking . They had been dating for close to two years now, and it wasn’t as though Father would disapprove of Damian staying with Jon for the majority of his life. It was just that… Well Damian had frankly never envisioned a life where he wasn’t completely dedicated to being Batman. And yet…. 

And yet he was actually considering blowing off a weekend of fighting crime with people his age to go to Prom just to get to see the excited, caught off guard flush on his boyfriend’s cheeks. He was considering something that wasn’t at all linked to him fighting crime that it was startling. “Ugh,” Jason shook his hand, mustard flying off his leather glove and landing on the brick beside Damian’s head. “I hate this guy.” He kicked not-so-gently at Condiment Man’s shoulder where he was lying on the ground, out cold from Damian’s punch. 

He didn’t wear his helmet much anymore, preferring the dark maroon of the domino he was currently wearing to the metal covering his face from view. The guns holstered on his thighs were more for show than for anything else, but Jason wasn’t afraid to use them if he absolutely needed to. Things between him and Father had started to shift around a year ago and Damian wasn’t sure what had done it but he wasn’t about to complain. Father seemed better with Jason around than he did with him far away and it was better for the city as a whole when Father was in a good mood. 

“He is useless.” Damian agreed and wrinkled his nose at the scent of ketchup that always seemed to follow Condiment Man around permeated the alleyway. 

“I don’t get how his shtick works.” Jason admitted, brushing a hand through his hair, his white streak catching between his fingers. “Hand over the money or I’ll drown you in ketchup?” 

“He’s annoying enough that I’d just give him the money to shut up.” 

Jason snorted, an undignified sound that would have had Alfred clicking his tongue fondly, and nudged Damian’s shoulder with his own. “What’s up with you tonight?” The downside of being Robin, Damian had realized quickly after putting on the suit for the first time, was that it came with unique baggage. Meaning it came with several overprotective siblings that had all been trained in the same exact evasion techniques he had been trained in. Idly, Damian wondered just how off he had to have been for Jason to be pointing it out. Jason wasn’t usually one to pry, that was Stephanie’s job and, weirdly, Timothy’s. Richard annoyingly had Damian down to a science - if he was quiet enough then Damian would come to him in his own time. 

Damian breathed out harshly from his nose. If any of his siblings would get it , he wasn’t quite sure Jason would be the one. Jason, after all, hadn’t even finished high school. Actually, if Damian thought about it, he wasn’t sure that any of them would get it. Perhaps Duke, but Duke was the only one who actually had a life outside of the costume that he happily maintained. Timothy had been terrible at it until Bernard Dowd and Richard was a tangle of only dating within the superhero community. Not that Jon wasn’t in the community. It was just that… Jon wasn’t in the community. He couldn’t go on the same missions Damian did. Damian almost selfishly wished that he would come up with a silly nickname for himself and decide to fight crime like his father (only without the powers to protect him) but that was a death wish and Damian much prefered Jonathan Kent alive , thank you very much. 

The point was, Jason didn’t pry, which meant that if Jason was prying that either he had been put up to it by one of Damian’s meddling siblings or that Robin had been off somehow. Which also meant that Father had definitely noticed something was up - the exact opposite of what Damian had wanted. 

Because Jon wanted to go to Prom and Damian knew his duty was to attend the Titans meeting and learn how to lead the team. So he was never going to ask for it off, just like Jon was never going to ask him to go, and it would sting and it would suck but it was just a dance and Damian could drag Jon to a Gala or something to make up for it. Get him all dressed up in a suit and tie and sneak him a glass of champagne and they could disappear to some corner or rooftop for a moment alone. 

Damian ran a hand down his face and pinched at his nose the same way Alfred did whenever Timothy and Jason’s bickering was getting on his nerves. “Nothing.” 

“So it has to do with your superboy?” Jason asked at the same time Damian denied anything. 

Damian hoped Jason could feel the weight of his glare through his domino. Jason only smiled cheekly and twirled Richard’s old escrima stick in his grip before holding it out to Damian to take and strap into its holster on his back. “It doesn’t matter.” 

Jason shrugged. “Red mentioned you were looking up prom etiquette the other day.” He said once they had landed on the rooftop next to Timothy, their brother nearly squawking in indignation. 

Typically, Damian enjoyed getting under Timothy’s skin. It was more of a game, now, then it had been in the beginning. Timothy went head to head, nose to nose, with Damian in everything. Verbally sparring with him was fun. He didn’t pull punches the way the others did, he had a biting humor that bordered the line of cruelty, and he generally avoided topics that were deemed too heavy to get into with an ease that no one else had. Damian would always be jealous of him, in one way or another, but he admired him just the same. But Timothy was also nosey and it was the type of nosey that was incredibly annoying . 

Richard had told him, once, around a laugh that it was incredibly normal to get annoyed with one's siblings. He had it on good authority that Richard and Jason were at each other’s throats more than they were a united front, and Jason and Timothy liked nudging each other past the line of friendly banter too often for it to not be on purpose. 

Damian was annoyed then, though he wasn’t sure which brother he was more annoyed with - Timothy for gossipping or Jason for bringing it up. Damian had nothing to say and so he followed Cass’ advice and pressed his lips tightly together to avoid saying anything at all. “Did Smallville ask you to Prom?” Jason prodded again, gently but dancing on the edge of knowing. 

Damian scowled. 

If there was ever a good time for Riddler to decide to send them on a wild goose chase around the city, this would be it. Damian would even pay him for the distraction if he could get the man to agree to it. Actually, he probably could. He was sure Harley Quinn was bored somewhere…. “Smallville’s prom is in a few weeks.” Timothy stated as though it was common knowledge. Which meant that either Timothy had done way more research into Damian’s personal life than he was comfortable with or he was speaking from experience. 

Damian was betting on the latter option. 

There wasn’t much that Timothy avoided, but his time with Conner Kent was one of those things. He didn’t speak much of the original Superboy, but Damian had gotten the majority of the story from Stephanie when he had asked. There had always been Conner, even when Timothy had been dating Stephanie. Conner had been a steady, warm, strong presence in a leather jacket and pierced ears. He had fought for Timothy as much as Timothy had fought for everyone else and when he had died it had left Timothy shattered in his shadow. Timothy had a necklace that Damian wisely kept quiet about, that he always wore regardless of the outfit, with a small black S made out of some Kyptonian metal. 

Sometimes Timothy let things about Conner Kent slip. 

Like prom. 

Like knowing when Prom in Smallville would be. “Don’t you have that Titans trip in a few weeks?” Jason asked in that voice of his that told Damian that his silence had given away more than he had intended. 

Damian nodded stiffly and his brothers exchanged a look around his back. Timothy shook his head and Jason pursed his lips and they didn’t bring it up again until they were back in the Cave, the sounds of the shower filling the air and Damian carefully sliding pieces of armor off of his sore and tired body. 

It was Timothy that asked it, quietly and with a nudge to his shoulder that had Damian looking up at him through his eyelashes. Up at him only because Damian was sitting down on the bench waiting for his turn to shower and Timothy was standing, his forearm freshly stitched by Alfred’s deft and talented fingers. “Do you want to go to Prom?” He asked it as though what Damian wanted was important when it came to something like this. 

“I have a duty.” Damian stubbornly set his jaw. 

Timothy smiled, a wry press of his lips. “Does Jon want to go?” 

Damian groaned. “It doesn’t matter.” 

“You know, you’re allowed to want to do something that’s not fighting crime.” 

“Did you want to go to Prom?” 

“Yes,” Timothy said it like it was something incredibly simple and dropped down beside Damian with a sigh. “We even had the tickets.” 

“But?” 

Timothy ducked his head and twisted his lips. “It’s kind of hard to go to Prom with someone when they’re dead.” 

Damian didn’t apologize. Timothy wouldn’t have wanted one anyway. Damian hadn’t brought it up, he hadn’t asked about Conner Kent, but Timothy had said it of his own free will. Sometimes Damian wondered how Father could have missed it, because he knew Clark Kent hadn’t. It seemed, even, that everyone but Father had known about the nature of Timothy and Conner’s relationship. Maybe that was something to get into later, when Damian wasn’t exhausted and stressing himself out over something that he was never going to get to do anyway. “Why don’t you tell Bruce you want to go?” 

“I don’t want to go.” 

“Your boyfriend wants to go.” 

“He’s fine with not going.” 

“Damian,” Timothy winced and rubbed at the back of his neck. “You know why he’s fine with not going.” 

Damian did, in fact, know why Jon was fine with not going. Jon wouldn’t ask to go because he knew Damian wouldn’t be able to. He had a duty that he had accepted the moment he was born. But it was more than that and it had everything to do with Jon being in Kansas and bisexual. 

Jon didn’t tell him a lot of what he was dealing with but Damian didn’t have to be smart to think of what it could be. There wouldn’t be anything physical, not with Jordan around and Jon more than able to stop anyone who tried (thank God for the time Richard had put into training him to defend himself). But words would be whispered, gazes averted, friendly physical affection skirted around. Jon had quit the football team and it wasn’t solely because Jordan had nudged his way into the MVP slot and stolen the only thing Jon had for himself away from him. Gotham was notoriously accepting. 

The rest of the world wasn’t so kind. 

“Father wouldn’t let me go if I asked.” Damian admitted slowly, uncurling his hands from the fists they had started to make on his thighs. 

Timothy hummed. “We could figure something out.” 

“A leader always puts their team first.” 

“You don’t need to parrot my handbook back to me.” Timothy joked and Damian huffed with an eyeroll. “Look, Damian, this is what it comes down to…” 

“Clean up, Damian,” Father said, his towel thrown over his shoulders as he exited the showers, stopping only to ruffle Damian’s hair with a big hand as he walked to the computers.

Timothy wisely kept quiet until Father was seated, fingers tapping away at the computer keys in a familiar clack, clack, clack . “Being Robin will suck the life out of you if you don’t take the time to remember what the point of living even is.” 

--

It was always a little weird when Jon was in Gotham. Not because Damian didn’t want him around (frankly, Damian always wanted him around which was, in itself, a terrifying thought) but because Jon was, to Damian at least, the physical embodiment of sunshine and Gotham was sometimes so dark Damian was afraid it was going to try and snuff him out like it did everything else that was bright in the world. Or maybe it was just the Manor, with shadows that lurked in corners of grandparents Damian would never meet, and ghosts that screamed in Richard’s voice for Father to care in a way he hadn’t been able to when he was younger, and empty rooms filled with the happy exuberance that Jason used to have. Or maybe it was just Damian being mauldin and Jon being the brightest thing in his entire life. 

Regardless, it was half a week later and Jon was in Gotham with his family and Bruce Wayne would never let a friend stay in a hotel and so the Kents were living in their guest rooms. Jordan was walking around with a stormcloud over his head, but that just made him look closer to a Gotham native and made Damian roll his eyes every time he caught him staring longingly out the window as though Sarah Cushing would somehow magically appear in the shrubs around the property. 

Technically, Jon wasn’t supposed to be in Damian’s room with the door closed but Damian knew all of his siblings had gotten up to much worse things under his father’s nose before and he wasn’t too mature to avoid throwing that in Father’s face if he tried to say anything. Typically, the two of them spent time together in Smallville, tucked away in a corner of Kent Farm for privacy. But every now and then the Kents would end up in Gotham for one reason or another, and Damian, no matter how much he would like to pretend otherwise, was a teenage boy who very much liked the sight of his rather attractive boyfriend stretched out on his sheets. 

They weren’t even doing anything, not even kissing (not yet , at least), but Jon had fallen rather dramatically onto Damian’s bed hours ago and Damian found he didn’t have the heart to move him. He should have been working on school work, after all it was a Thursday, but Jon was distracting and Damian had figured out two years ago that his concentration was always going to be shot when Jon was on his bed . There was just something about it - Jon lying against everything that belonged to Damian like he fit even though he shouldn’t, arms tucked up under his head, shoes kicked off by Damian’s door like an afterthought, haphazard enough to be a trip hazard, pink lips curled up in a small comfortable smile. Damian had a knife under the pillow Jon was laying on, he had a sword on his wall for decoration and one definitely not for decoration in arms reach under his bed. Damian had books along his wall that were in Arabic and Sanskrit and Alfred the Cat sleeping in his window and he should have been able to focus on anything that wasn’t Jonathan Kent and the way his eyes were shut and the sliver of sun kissed skin that teased in the space between his shirt and jeans and yet he couldn’t bring himself to look away. 

“How long are you staying?” Damian asked, finally, carefully laying his bookmark against the pages of his book and placing it gently on the floor beside the bed, his hip nudging gently at Jon’s elbow. 

Jon hummed. “I think until the weekend? Dad said something about wanting Jordan to meet up with Diana.” 

Damian knew it must have stung, just as it unintentionally always did whenever Clark did something for Jordan and it meant left Jon behind. The sting wouldn’t fade, not all the way, but it had begun to sting a bit less as the years went on. Jon was closer to Lois anyway, Damian remembered. But there was something about being the good sibling that ate away at him in an incredibly slow erosion. Damian hoped that having him helped. That having someone that didn’t care all that much about any of the other Kents helped soothe some of his invisible wounds. “Would you like to go out to dinner tomorrow?” He asked rather impulsively and Jon’s eyes blinked open, a teasing glitter to them. 

He had started wearing contacts the year before and Damian knew he had his glasses in his suitcase for if his eyes started irritating him. He was happy Jon wasn’t wearing them now, because the glasses and that tease would be enough for Damian to yearn to do unseemly things to him that he couldn’t do with his entire family gathered somewhere in the Manor and his door unlocked. “Are you asking me on a date , Damian Wayne?” 

“That depends on your answer.” 

Jon huffed out a laugh, his hand warm where it curled over Damian’s neck and his body was solid as he swung himself up, Damian’s hands steadying him as he swung a leg over Damian’s two so that he bracketed him, hovering over his lap. Damian had gotten taller in the last year, since they had started this . Tall enough that he towered over everyone aside from Jason, the second tallest, skipping the awkward lanky limbed stage thanks to his frequent training. Jon was shorter than him now, by a few inches, but when he hovered like he was currently he was the taller one. His hands framed Damian’s face, fingers teasing the short hairs on the back of his head, a brilliant bright light even as his breath brushed over Damian’s lips, teasing him just as much as his eyes. “Of course.” Jon answered sincerely and Damian’s heart felt like something funny. Like he couldn’t quite believe that he had ever done anything good enough to deserve this but he wanted nothing more than to cherish it for as long as Jon would have him. 

He made a noise, or perhaps Jon made the noise, but it didn’t matter much who did what when Jon kissed him. Jon’s lips had the distinct ability to make every other noise dull into an echo behind the sound of his own heart. They were seering, and if Damian didn’t know any better he would have sworn he was some sort of metahuman with the ability to stop time with just a press of his mouth against another's.   

As it was, thinking wasn’t exactly something Damian was keen on doing at that moment, and he found it nearly impossible to do anyway. He felt Jon shiver at the way Damian’s muscles tensed in time with the drag of tongue over the seam of his lips. Or maybe it was the way Damian pulled him closer, their chests pressed together, Jon’s nails scraping at his skull lightly. Jon wasn’t weak, was the thing, and it might have been a thing for him to be controlled and it might have been a thing for Damian to control. The more physical aspect of their relationship was new, but it wasn’t something that either of them rushed into or thought too hard about. Damian had been nine when his mother had sat him down for the sex talk, and then thirteen when a rather red faced Richard had stammered through a more inclusive one. Damian wasn’t the first person Jon had ever dated, either, and he had gotten the same awkward talk Damian had gotten from an overly prepared Lois Lane when he was fourteen. And they were seventeen, now, and sure they hadn’t done everything but the way Jon settled into his lap wasn’t anything new. 

It still had the both of them hissing into each other’s mouths, though, and Damian was lucky he had enough forethought to know to press a palm to Jon’s lips before he started kissing his way down his neck to stifle any noises that were bound to fall out of his mouth. It had been months and somehow Jon still tasted the same against his tongue and somehow he still made Damian’s heart pound in his chest like he had just gone up for ten rounds against his most difficult foe without even doing anything. A hand smoothed down his chest, slipped under to brush fingers against skin and -. 

A sharp knock rapped at the wood, once, and then twice in quick succession and Damian thrust his head back with a long, frustrated groan. “To be continued,” Jon murmured and slid deftly to the side, nudging Damian’s shoulder with his own smaller, not-used-to-fill-out-a-spandex-suit one. “Quick, think of something else.” Except it was hard to focus on anything else when Jon was sitting so close that Damian could feel the heat coming off of him. It was hard to focus when he still had the taste of his skin on his tongue. Damian glared at nothing in particular and thanked Cass for her quick intervention only when Father’s voice echoed down the hallway, Richard speaking much louder than was necessary. “Cooking a Thanksgiving turkey.” 

Damian startled and glanced at Jon out of the corner of his eye, pretending he didn’t notice the way Jon had shifted, tugging Damian’s pillow to his chest, his arm curled tightly across his shins. He smiled goofily, Damian’s lips twitching to echo it back at him. “I’m vegetarian.” 

“Yeah,” Jon breathed, his crystal eyes sparkling in humor and something else, something that had Damian pressing closer again, catching his mouth under his own with a gentle ease. “That was sort of the point.” Damian would have considered kissing him, if only to get the sneaky, teasing twist of his lips to go away, but his door softly creaked open and Richard was giving him a look that said that he was lucky that it was him that had walked in first. 

Damian didn’t bother holding back his eye roll and Richard’s lips twitched in the ghost of a smile. “Hey, Jon.” His brother greeted and Jon’s cheeks colored, a pink crawling up his neck but he met Richard’s eyes gamely. 

Damian didn’t doubt, for a moment, that Richard knew what they had been up to. Just like he didn’t doubt that Richard had done worse when he was younger than Damian (he had Richard’s own word on that ). “Hi, Dick,” Jon greeted, slumped down a little bit farther into Damian’s side and nuzzled his nose into his ribs. 

“Aren’t you cute?” Richard observed and blocked the doorway from Father’s bulking frame. 

There was something interestingly peculiar about how Father worked around Richard. Perhaps it was an unwavering respect, or maybe it was something more, but Damian had observed them over the years. He had observed the way Father seemed to quietly defer to Richard in the aspects of Robin which, Damian had to admit, made sense. Richard had been first, the original, the one to birth the role in the first place. Damian wasn’t worried how Richard would react, or how his Father would, or anyone, really. Jon was his and he was Jon’s and there wasn’t much Damian would fight his Father for but that was nonnegotiable. 

Damian dipped his chin and Richard’s lips twitched the way they always did when he had found something amusing that he wasn’t supposed to find particularly amusing. He stepped to the side and Father slid in the doorway, pressing his lips together in a ghost of a smile at the two of them. “Alfred says dinner is almost done. We’ll be eating in the big dining room.” Father’s eyes barely glanced down but Damian knew his father well enough to know that he had clocked, moments before walking in the room, what exactly it was the two of them had been getting up to before Cass had interrupted them. 

If Damian had thought, at ten, that there would be a day he would be thankful for his gaggle of older siblings he would have stabbed himself in fear of mind control. Now, he simply sunk farther into his pillows, his palm rubbing perhaps a bit harder than necessary at Jon’s spine, and tilted his chin upwards to meet his father’s gaze head on. Father looked away first. Richard winked approvingly. 

“Ugh,” Jon grunted into his side. 

“Ugh.” Damian agreed. 

--

As with most things in Damian’s life, the date he had promised Jon the night before was ruined before it really had the chance to begin. Well, maybe that wasn’t entirely fair. They had made it as far as the glass doors of the restaurant (one that knew the Wayne family well and was more than happy to be discreet for the Prince of Gotham and his heirs) and Damian knew that he should count that as a win. He knew his siblings had an ongoing list of events, big and small, they weren’t able to attend like so many of their peers because of one crisis, world ending or otherwise. He knew Richard would happily listen if Damian needed someone to whine about not being able to take his boyfriend on the date he wanted to take him on. He knew Timothy would go a few rounds with him if he needed to let out his frustration that way. 

But, in the grand scheme of things, going on a date with Jonathan Kent wasn’t as important as protecting the citizens of Gotham. 

Even if it felt dying for Damian to admit it. 

Still, if there was anything Father had trained Damian on, it was handling his emotions. Well, handling his emotions like a Bat . Which meant, comparatively, not handling his emotions. Not in moments of stress (or, in Father’s case, in moments of anything that wasn’t life ending. It was why so many of his relationships, romantic or platonic, had failed). Not when lives needed to be saved. 

Damian wished, not for the first time, that he had the ability to turn himself on and off like the others. He had seen the switch in Richard when he had first started, observed the way Grayson disappeared and Nightwing took control. Jason was perhaps the one that had the most difficulty in shutting Jason Todd down and turning Red Hood on, but even he had mastered it in the years Damian had known him. Timothy’s was almost scary to watch - when Timothy was Red Robin he was everything Timothy Drake wasn’t. Ultimately, they were all performers and Damian had never been able to perform to the level that they were. 

Gotham was protected, in the end. Damian was merely superfluous (not to the people on the street, not to the kids in the warehouse he had broken the lock of to set free from traffickers, not to the dog he took a bullet to kevlar for) when Batman and Superman were on the case. But Richard had gone back to Bludhaven after dinner the night before, and the others were stretched thin as it was. Damian had been on civilian duty, mainly because he had been a civilian when the attack had begun. 

But that was getting ahead of things. 

Because Damian and Jon hadn’t made it past the glass windows of the restaurant when Damian’s watch had vibrated three times in the alert pattern Oracle had set up and he had stopped, a foot in the air, his brow furrowed in distress. If Jon hadn’t been there Damian wouldn’t have hesitated. Jon was there, however, halfway through a story explaining something mundane that had happened during his last baseball game, and Damian had, foolishly, wanted to know it ended if only so that he could spend another moment watching him smile. “What is it?” They weren’t holding hands, not the way Damian longed to, because it would attract more attention than he was willing to. Damian had never been a fan of the tabloids, even if he knew he could play the part well enough. It was more than that, though. Jon didn’t deserve the sort of things that Damian had said about him. “Damian?” 

He snapped back, his eyes found Jon’s concerned, yet knowing, ones and his stomach lurched. 

Damian didn’t want to say it. 

It suddenly felt like too many disappointments at once. “I’m sorry,” he said lamely and he hoped the apology came across for what it was meant to. He was sorry for a lot of things - for beginning this in the first place if he couldn’t be completely committed to it, for the way that no one else had the time of day to give Jon their undivided attention (unfair, he told himself, he was being so unfair ), for the countless dates, weekends, moments that had to be cut short because Damian had an obligation to a city that didn’t care whether he lived or died. For Prom. For every jagged edge Damian knew he contained that he always feared would one day cut too deeply into Jon’s skin and finally be the thing to make him leave. 

Jon’s concern didn’t dwindle, but it didn’t increase either. His lips curled up into a twisted mockery of the smile he had been wearing before, and his fingers, slender and nimble, reached out to twine around Damian’s. He squeezed, gentle but pressing. “Don’t apologize.” There wasn’t even a question why . Damian knew there was always a why . He always expected a why . Timothy had lamented long and hard enough about how it was sometimes terrible to be with a civilian - Bernard always asks why and I’m starting to wonder why I even bother trying to come up with a lie when it just makes me look unreliable . 

Jon never asked why. 

“I asked you here.” Damian argued and he wasn’t quite sure why he did. 

Did he want Jon to yell at him? To tell him that he was more important than the city Damian had sworn to protect? 

A fight wouldn’t have been a bad thing, Damian reasoned. Hurt feelings were a normal and expected human reaction when someone’s boyfriend asked them on a date and had the nerve to cancel it right as it began. “And, look?” Jon’s eyebrows shot up as he said it, his face scrunching as he attempted a joke and swept his arm towards the restaurant dramatically. “We made it!” 

“Jonathan.” Damian groaned but Jon shook their hands in his own until Damian was looking back at him, a small smile toying with his lips despite himself. “I won’t be long.” 

“I knew what I was signing up for when we started this.” Jon reassured and Damian wanted to argue. He wanted to push Jon backwards until his back hit the glass windows and crowd into his space until he had to look up and tell him that he didn’t . That Damian didn’t even know what he was getting into when they had started dating. He wanted to tell him that it was okay to be angry that Damian was bailing, again. He wanted…. His watch vibrated four times, a secure and encrypted message flashing on the face. Hurry up , the pattern said. 

Damian had felt like he was being pulled in different directions before. With his mother and his father and his siblings and responsibilities. He had never thought he would be quite so… human to be considering blowing off the entire city just to have a night, uninterrupted, with the other man standing across from him. “You are a priority, Jon.” He whispered softly, instead, into the crease of Jon’s lips, brushing a curl behind his ear ( soft and gentle and tender and like he had no jagged edges that weren’t carefully smoothed over to prevent harm ) as he stepped backwards, pressing the button on his phone that would summon a car to him. 

Climbing inside was one, strangely, one of the hardest things he had ever had to do. 

--

“That,” Jordan’s excitement, annoyingly, reminded Damian of his twin. Timothy grunted, but mostly Stephanie seemed happy to engage the excitable Superboy. “Was so cool !” Jordan was wearing a bastardized Superman suit, complete with long, billowing red cape and all. The only thing missing was the single, artful curl on his forehead. Damian idly wondered if the suit that Jordan wore was Kryptonian made like Superman’s was, or if he had gotten it made by the same people who had made Kara Danvers’. Jon mentioned her, sometimes. He seemed to get along better with her than he did his own parents, depending on the topic, but Damian supposed he understood. While Richard was his brother, Richard and Kara were practically the same age and had a similar temperament. “Where’d you learn that move , man?” 

No one that wasn’t a Bat wouldn’t have noticed the slight, small flinch from Timothy, but Damian was his brother and Stephanie was his best friend and notice wasn’t even the correct term for it. Damian felt it like a bolt of lighting in his heart. Timothy didn’t flinch . He had watched Timothy go toe-to-toe with his grandfather, be torchered, and weather the media storm that was coming out and he had never once flinched. But Jordan reached for his shoulder in a show of post-battle comradery and Timothy flinched. In a move that was downright artistic, Stephanie slid between the two of them, slung an arm over Jordan’s shoulders, and effectively pulled him far enough away from Timothy that he couldn’t touch him without trying. 

“Shiva.” Timothy recovered quickly enough, but Damian could still see it in the shadows of his eyes. Without the masks on, in the damp cold of the cave, Damian could suddenly see a lot more than he had thought of when Clark had shown up earlier that week. 

Clark Kent only came to Gotham for a few reasons - to cover a story, to help Father with something Justice League related, or to test out a new protege. 

All things considered, Damian had to give Timothy a certain amount of credit - he had held up remarkably well for someone potentially caught off guard by someone else going by Conner Kent’s previous moniker. For all that Damian knew, Conner never wore a suit similar to Clark’s - they hadn’t gotten along well enough for that to be something that could happen. Perhaps they would have, if Conner had lived long enough to see it. But Conner hadn’t, the two of them had never made amends, and Damian felt a little terrible for failing to notice Timothy deliberately avoiding saying the codename aloud the entire night. “Is that a person or a place?” Jordan asked dumbly and Damian met Timothy’s gaze only to share a look of unfair disbelief. “Nevermind, can you teach me that move?” 

Timothy hummed noncommittally. 

As a general rule of thumb, Damian didn’t dislike Jordan Kent. He couldn’t, or he’d risk losing Jon completely. It was just that… well, Jon was protective and Damian had every right to be protective too. Jordan was annoying , was the thing. In a way that drove Damian up a wall. He wasn’t mean, like all of the Kent’s he was incredibly kind, and he wasn’t combative (at least, not any more than Jon was), but he was also… also… he pissed Damian off. He wondered if Jordan knew the things his teammates had said about Jon when they had been forced into the public. He wondered if Jordan knew the amount of things kept Jon up at night - worry about his brother, jealousy over his brother’s powers while he remained painfully human, anger and hurt and resentment and perhaps more anxiety than Jordan had ever felt in his entire life. Damian didn’t know if Jordan knowing would make it any better, in the end. He knew Jon was good at lying to everyone around him, even himself. 

Could any hurt truly be on Jordan’s shoulders when Jon never spoke the words aloud? 

Yes, Damian decided, thinking of their failed date just earlier that night, because Jon spoke without words sometimes. He spoke in the way he didn’t speak. 

And someone didn’t need superhearing to know that being left behind in a family of superheroes, would hurt. 

“You know,” Timothy commented idly. “I think actually stabbing him would be better than that look you’re giving him.” He flicked a glove off of his fingers and his ink black hair (like Father’s - Damian had his mother’s hair, thick waves and a dark, rich brown) poked at the tip of his nose, sweaty from the night’s activities. 

“He’s annoying.” Damian grunted. 

“He’s literally your boyfriend’s twin.” 

“You’re also annoying.” 

“Well, you’re not exactly a ray of sunshine, either.” Timothy rolled his eyes, but his deadpan did what he had wanted it to, and Damian found himself snorting out a laugh despite himself. “Why do you want to kill your boyfriend’s brother?” 

Damian shook his head and rolled his wrists, bending at the waist to start to unlace his boots. “I don’t.” 

Timothy hummed, again. 

Always humming, always seeing more than Damian wanted him to. It was why they had clashed so much in the beginning. Damian was so used to not being seen and Timothy was so used to seeing that it had caused a cataclysmic event between them. “Is this about prom, again?” Timothy pitched his voice softer to ask it, and Stephanie was doing a good enough job distracting Jordan from listening in, but Jordan had a tenuous grasp on his powers at the best of times and Damian knew, from the way his eyes had shot over to the two of them, that Jordan was solely giving them his attention. 

He pursed his lips and considered his options - Damian had worked too hard with his relationship with his family to not accept help when they offered it, and Timothy was like a dog with a bone at the smallest hint of anything mildly interesting. He wouldn’t be deterred unless Damian specifically asked him to pay it no mind, and he couldn’t do that with Jordan listening in. As much as Damian didn’t get along with Jordan, that didn’t mean that he wanted Jordan thinking even for a moment that Damian wasn’t 100% committed to his brother. “We were supposed to be on a… date tonight.” Damian said instead, speaking more to Stephanie’s shoes than Timothy’s face. 

Timothy winced, regardless. “It was Bernard’s birthday, last week, when Ivy and Harley had that blow out fight at the botanic gardens.” 

Damian remembered that. Well, he remembered Jason, who hilariously preferred to not be in a romantic relationship, play couples counselor between the two women. He also remembered Timothy threatening to set the entire place on fire if they wouldn’t give him the night to just pretend to be normal. Harley had apologized profusely when Jason had muttered something about Timothy needing to get laid. 

Sometimes their lives were really weird. 

“I’m getting tired of letting him down.” Damian admitted quieter still, and Timothy was silent, his mouth twisted in a hard line, his eyes narrowed, and Damian’s own found, unconsciously, Jordan’s. Jordan with his mouth open and ears trained on them. “He doesn’t deserve to think he’s second best all the time.” It was a bit pointed, a bit cruel, and Damian instantly regretted it, if only because of how Jon would react once he heard. 

Timothy sighed and tilted his head back in that long suffering way he had picked up from Barbara, and Damian’s cheeks flushed. He stalked off towards the showers, something that felt like white hot misery pooling in his gut. 

--

As with most things in Damian’s life, it came to a head with Richard Grayson climbing up beside him on the Manor’s roof and a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Damian wasn’t particularly fond of mint chocolate chip ice cream - in fact, he would never buy it unless he was having a bad day. It was a cool comfort when Richard wasn’t around to accompany it; a hold over from his days as Batman and Damian’s days playing his Robin with too much to prove. Wordlessly, Richard handed him a silver spoon pilfered from the utensil drawer that Alfred had worked on restocking the week before (spoons, for some reason, always had a habit of disappearing in the Wayne household). He stretched his legs out beside Damian’s, an inch shorter. It sometimes struck Damian as odd, if he stopped to think about it, that as he got older and grew taller and his body filled out to look more like his father’s, that Richard stayed the same as he had been when Damian had first appeared when he was ten. That his oldest brother, his father in a different way that Damian didn’t have words for, was steady in his own body in a way that Damian feared he never would be. 

Richard employed his best tactic to get Damian talking. 

He said nothing at all. 

Contrary to popular belief, Richard was probably the quietest of the family. Jason wasn’t loud but he picked up conversations easily and without hesitation. Timothy’s words were carefully chosen a majority of the time, but once he got started on a topic he wouldn’t finish unless he ran out of air. Stephanie was bold and loud, Cassandra soft but pressing. Duke was a middle ground, but Richard… Richard talked plenty. But not about anything of consequence. He spoke to fill the silence, he quipped with villains and teased and nudged but he was remarkably tight lipped about anything personal or important. 

Emotionally constipated, Barbara had called the whole of them. 

Damian pressed his shoulder against Richard’s, swallowed the spoonful of ice cream and turned his gaze back towards the driveway the Kent’s had disappeared down hours before. “It’s stupid.” 

Richard leaned back onto his hands, and let his head drop down between his shoulder blades to look up at the starless Gotham night sky. “A lot of things that matter tend to be stupid.” 

Damian grunted, stabbed the spoon back into the green ice cream balanced precariously on Richard’s knee and stuffed it in his mouth. Saying goodbye to Jon had been hard, not more difficult than any of the other times they had said goodbye but it still stung something deep in the pit of Damian’s stomach. It had just been the three of them seeing the Kent’s off - Father, Damian and Richard. But the company had meant that Damian hadn’t been able to give the proper goodbye he longed for. He had settled for an arm tight around Jon’s back - if he closed his eyes and concentrated he could feel the ghost of Jon’s fingers tight in the small of his back, the breath puffed against the crook of his neck, the soft, sighing kiss pressed quickly to his lips. If Damian concentrated, he could remember Lois Lane pretending not to be watching them and Jordan not bothering to hide his stare. 

“Timothy told you what happened after the mission.” Damian stated it because it seemed incredibly obvious that Timothy would . His brothers were gossips and Damian’s love life was apparently one of their favorite topics. 

“Tim didn’t tell me anything,” the soft curl of his words told Damian that Richard was telling the truth. “Steph, though…” 

Damian glared at the ice cream perched on Richard’s knee and pursed his lips. 

“What’s this about, Dami?” Richard prompted softly and Damian knew that if he were to tell him that he didn’t want to talk about it that Richard would respect his wishes and let him wallow. 

Only he did want to talk about it. 

Damian wanted to talk about everything , up to and including the stupid Prom and the way it ate at Damian inside that Jon wouldn’t even ask because he knew what the answer would be. “Did you ever go to Prom?” 

“No,” Richard said simply. “But I never really wanted to.”

“Because it’s stupid.” Damian was glad he agreed. 

Richard laughed, soft and twinkling - his real laugh, not the loud, boisterous one he had on missions. “No, because Bruce and I were at each other’s throats every time we were in a room alone.” 

Unlike the others, Richard wasn’t shy about his time as Robin - nor was he shy about the reasons why he had left the suit behind. Damian knew a little about the hardships that had been between Richard and his father when it came to Richard growing up and Father’s expectations being too big. It was one of the reasons Richard was around as much as he was. Sometimes they still got into those same, tired arguments; Richard wasn’t a child that needed guidance and Father had difficulty looking beyond the domino to see the man he had become. Damian knew what Richard would say if he was pressed: Bruce wasn’t a father and when he decided to be one, it was too late for both of us . Richard was Father’s greatest achievement and greatest mistake all mixed in one. 

That’s part of being a parent , Mother would have said, scratching at Damian’s hair in that voice of hers that spoke more than Talia ever allowed herself to speak. Damian was that to her , after all. 

“Wasn’t Gotham Academy’s prom last month?” Richard didn’t say the word the way Damian did. He said it was a lowercase, as though it didn’t hold nearly as much importance and significance as it did to Damian. To Damian, it was an uppercase event. Prom and not prom. Important in its nonchalance. 

“Smallville’s is next week.” Damian said around a mouthful of ice cream, chocolate chips crunching under his teeth. 

Richard observed him in the unnerving way he always did (quiet enough about it that Damian didn’t even know he was being observed until it was too late. Sometimes Damian thought his grandfather was an idiot for not being more afraid of Richard as he was of Timothy, but Damian was about ninety eight percent sure that his grandfather only left Richard alone as a thank you for watching out for Damian all of those years). “Ah.” Richard said and Damian flushed. 

All of them read Damian so easily that he wished, not for the first time, that he was unreadable. That the pages of himself had stayed scrawled in messy handwriting in a different language. “I don’t want to go.” Damian felt the need to point out, even if the words felt like a lie. 

They didn’t sound like one. 

Still, Richard only raised his brow and Damian was deflating. “Jon wants to go.” 

“Jordan isn’t going.” 

“But they’re not attached at the hip.” 

“They’re going to have a movie night.” 

“And you’re going to be with the Titans.” 

“Mother and Father both agree that I should have leadership experience before I strike out alone.” 

“Unless…” 

Damian watched him, the way Richard’s lips twisted into the hint of mischievous smile, his bright eyes sparkling at whatever it was he was thinking. “Donna’s going to be at the Titans meet up.” Richard continued, drumming his fingers lightly on the Manor’s roof. “I think Roy’s planning on it, too. I could easily talk Wally into it.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“I don’t really know why you’ll be necessary if the original Titans team was having a reunion.” 

“Why would you be having a reunion?” 

“Well,” Richard shrugged. “It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Tim’s going to be at that memorial for Conner with Bart and Cassie in Metropolis. Which is only like an hour from Smallville.” 

Damian couldn’t think. Something that felt too much like blinding hope was bubbling up in his chest. 

“If you wanted to go to prom, that is.” 

Damian swallowed thickly. “Father would never allow it.” 

“What Bruce doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Richard commented lightly. 

Damian snorted derisively. “Father -.” 

“Dami,” Richard cut him off, fixing him with a look that seemed to dare him to lie. “Do you want to go to prom?” 

Did he want to go to Prom?

Not particularly. Damian had been to plenty of stuffy parties with plenty of stuffy people. He had a closet full of suits and ties and pretty, sparkling shoes. He knew how to ballroom dance and how to hide his accent just enough that it made him sound charming and exotic . Damian didn’t want to go to Prom. 

But the list of things Damian wanted to do was longer than the list of things he didn’t. He didn’t care about the bad food or the limousine or the suit or anything that had to do with the event itself. He cared about the way Jon had said, off handedly, I think it’s sweet, that he wanted to go with her badly enough to make her something to ask . And, damn it if Damian didn’t want to give him the world on a golden platter. If he didn’t want to see the way Jon’s eyes would light up, the way he would look in a perfectly tailored suit. He wanted to feel the lines of him under his hands, he wanted to listen to Jon sing off tune softly into Damian’s ear, pressed close to his side. He wanted to get him flowers and take the stupid pictures and stay up too late because they had spent all night together and not because he was fighting crime. “ Yes ,” He breathed before he could stop himself and Richard brushed his fingers over his forehead, a knowing smile playing at his lips. 

“Okay.” He nodded. “Then you’re going to prom.” 

--

It was a fight to get Damian to go. He had known it would be a fight, and it was one he wasn’t supposed to have heard, but it was a fight all the same. It was Richard against his father and Damian stopped with a stuttering step outside of his father’s study, his fist poised to knock against the wood of the closed door before Duke stopped him with a quick, silent shake of his head. Fighting . Duke mouthed as though Damian needed the explanation. 

He settled back on his heels and imagined how it must look on the inside - Richard would be standing closest to the door, not to run out of it but to protect anyone on the other side. Father would be sitting behind the desk or, perhaps, standing beside his parents’ wedding picture he kept on the fireplace mantle. They would be staring at each other, Father trying his hardest not to get defensive and Richard cataloging every minute shift in his expression and body language. Jason, in the end, was the one that had seen the majority of the fights between Father and Richard, but Damian had always been the best at diffusing them. 

“He never mentioned it.” Father’s voice grumbled through the door, calm and steady to anyone that didn’t know him. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be the World’s Greatest Detective?” Richard quipped and Damian knew without seeing it that if his father was one to blush, it would have been covering his cheeks as the sarcasm in his oldest son’s voice. “Why would he mention it if he thinks the answer is going to be no?” 

“Why would the answer be no?” 

“Bruce, you and I both know that you’re trying to come up with a way to say no that won’t end in me telling him yes.” 

“You’re not his father.” The resounding silence was icy cold, on both sides of the door. Damian knew how it was - Father wasn’t being purposely cruel and Richard wasn’t purposely overstepping. He didn’t see himself as Damian’s father any more than he saw himself as Jason or Timothy’s parent. 

But the relationship between them was different, Damian knew (and so did Duke, if the way he was looking at him proved anything). Richard had stepped up more than he should have been responsible for doing when Father had “died” - be that as Batman or as a pseudo father figure. He had barely been old enough, Damian remembered that much, only in his early twenties himself and yet he had offered Damian a stability and strength that was staggering. He hadn’t buckled under the weight of his growing responsibilities, even if it seemed as though everyone else had expected him to. “And you’re not his jailer.” 

Duke whistled, low and quietly, rocking back on his heels and sharing a wide eyed look with Damian. 

Okay, yes, Damian understood more than anyone the eggshells between his father and Richard that each of them tried so desperately to avoid. They had all stumbled upon them at one point or another. It was inevitable. And yet he was still shocked that Richard was the one willing to step onto the shattered pieces to confront Father head-on and without fear. 

“Damian, your son ,” Richard continued, in that quietly passionate quality his voice adapted at will, “Wants to go to prom. He wants to dance with his boyfriend, and eat food that is frankly not worth the cost of the ticket. He wants to take the cheesy ass prom pictures that we all know you’re going to hang up in a place of honor in this office. He wants to buy Jonathan Kent a corsage and probably make out with him in the back of a car.” Duke snorted, giving up all pretense of not eavesdropping, and leaned against the wall beside the door with his arms crossed. Damian followed suit on the other side, steadfastly ignoring the way his blush painted his cheeks cherry red. “And you are going to let him do this, Bruce. Do you know why ?” 

“Because it’s what a father should do -.”

“Because in the seven years we’ve known him, this is the one normal, human experience that Damian has ever admitted to wanting .” Damian flushed at the language. He would argue if asked - Damian asked for a lot of things. He asked for animals and respect and training. He asked for a legacy, for Robin, for…. Well, he was always more fond of taking than he was asking and maybe Richard was right. Maybe they all were. Maybe Damian didn’t have a normal, human bone in his body until Jon had come along. Or maybe Damian had just never learned how to communicate those wants into anything concrete until he was requesting for someone other than himself. 

Father sighed, soft enough that it almost didn’t pass through the wood of the door, and his chair creaked as he sat back into its cushions. Whatever was going to come next could be a number of things - he could say no, he could say yes, he could avoid a commitment altogether. Father could shock them all and apologize for ever putting Richard into the place he was stuck in. Instead he asked, “What about the Titans?” 

Richard laughed, short and sardonic. “It’s been handled.” 

It’s been handled . 

“How would he get to Smallville?”

“Bruce, it’s been handled .” 

“The media is going to have a field day.” 

“Well then I guess you and Selina better keep them busy.” 

--

It was surreal after that, Timothy barging his way into Damian’s bedroom, easily disarming him in his half asleep state, a cardboard cup filled with tea in one hand and one filled with coffee in another, a purple bruise forming on his cheek bone and a slender, dark raised eyebrow crawling up onto his forehead. “We’re going suit shopping.” The cup of tea was placed a bit too heavily on Damian’s nightstand, the knife he had tried to kill him with tossed at his pile of clothes in the hamper, and a scratch brushed into Ace’s furry head.

“What?” Damian asked in Arabic and then again in English. 

Timothy rolled his eyes but walked out without expanding, pulling Damian’s sheets down as he went, Cass wiggling her fingers at him brightly in the doorway. “What?” He directed blankly at her instead. 

“Prom.” Cass signed and a spark danced up Damian’s spine. 

Technically, the event wasn’t until the end of the week. He would have said that they had plenty of time, but that felt like a lie even to his half asleep brain. In Gotham it was best to prepare sooner rather than later, always with several contingency plans in place for when things would inevitably go awry. Still, Damian grumbled all the way awake, through a hasty shower, and down the stairs where Cass was waiting to greet him with a happy peck on his cheek. She had to lean up to do it, they all did now aside from Jason and Kate, and Damian only leaned into her side for a moment before straightening, catching the haphazardly wrapped muffin Timothy tossed him without a second thought. “Don’t the stores open after ten?” He asked lightly around a mouthful of flour and sugar. 

“A store ,” Timothy scoffed playfully. He nudged Cass with his shoulder and she laughed brightly, smiling as brightly as the sunshine they stepped out into. “What are we, some common thrift store shopper?” 

“I got this dress at a thrift store.” Cass rubbed the soft fabric between her fingers with a wrinkle of her brow and a wicked look in her eye. Damian snorted into his muffin. 

Timothy didn’t even blink, casually tossing his arm over their sister’s shoulders and tugging her closer to his side. “And I’ve already told you that you look very pretty in it.” 

“You could say it again.” 

“You look very pretty in your dress today, Cass.” 

She pressed her lips happily to his cheek and plucked his keys from his dangling fingers. They watched her walk off, both well aware that if they were going to be in for one of the most terrifying drives of their entire lives with her behind the wheel. “I’m too young to die.” Damian remarked blandly. 

Timothy groaned, his head tossed back dramatically, the length of his throat obscured only by a hickey that Damian was doing a very good job of ignoring up until that moment. He wondered how he had explained the mark to their father, belatedly realized that was probably why they were leaving so early and so quickly, and wondered, not for the first time, how Timothy (apparently the smartest of all of them) was somehow the most dense brother he had ever been gifted with. “Cass,” Timothy called out at a normal volume. “Don’t kill Damian.” 

“Boo,” the request had the desired effect, though, and she tossed the keys back over to him from the passenger side door. “Baby sits in back.” 

It was fine with him, Damian wasn’t overly fond of driving. 

He knew how to do it, of course, but knowing how to drive and liking driving were two entirely different things. Damian had known how to drive since before he could reach the pedals. He had stolen the Batmobile when he was eleven, and Richard had given him lessons on the Red Birds when he was twelve. Driving was something that Robin had to know how to do. 

It was just that it was boring . 

And, really, Damian was enough of a weapon himself; he didn’t have to go driving one around all the time. So he rather happily slid into the backseat, leaned back against the leather cushion of the seats and listened to the soft chatterings of his siblings in the front. Damian wasn’t the quietest of the Wayne children, but neither of the two in the front were the loudest, either. They would welcome his intrusion, if he were to deem their conversation worthy of joining, but they would equally accept his slow walk into wakefulness and Damian, as he got older, was growing more and more fond of the quiet, slow mornings that he so rarely had. 

His phone vibrated softly in his pocket and Damian’s lips twitched into a smile at the read out on his watch. 

Why are you up?  

It was a curious text, one that Damian so rarely got given the lack of stable sleep schedule either of them kept. But Damian had only hung up with Jon three hours before and they had shared their locations with each other years ago. Forced bonding time. He typed back and thumbed through his Twitter before it hit him that Jon was, also, awake much too early. Why are you up?

The answer was almost immediate, a picture loading in their text thread of Jordan with Sarah Cushing sitting beside him, a silly, smitten smile on his face as she cupped his cheeks in her hands. 

Well, that didn’t last nearly as long as Damian had thought it would. 

I have to run interference.  

He frowned at the three little dots as they danced across his screen, an explanation popping up before he even had to ask for one. 

She stayed the night and mom and dad are pretending they don’t know . 

Superhearing . 

Superhearing.

--

Smallville was an hour ahead of Gotham which meant that Damian was slowly peeling himself out of Timothy’s plush leather backseat an hour before sunset, nerves thrumming through his blood worse than any end of the world battle he had ever been in. His fingers toyed with the end of his sleeve, his gaze caught on the fluffy white clouds hovering in the sky above the Kent farmhouse. Jon’s bedroom window was the one that had a near perfect view of the driveway and it was open, the curtains lazily blowing with the sticky spring air. Kansas didn’t get the seasons the same way Gotham did, but the sun seemed brighter away from the shadows of the city and the stars at night were a sight that he never thought he’d get to see once he left the desert he had grown up in. “You okay?” Bernard Dowd asked softly, his hand flexing over Timothy’s wrist where he still sat, tense behind the steering wheel, stuck in a different time but the same place. 

There were times where Damian wondered just how much Bernard knew. It wasn’t any of his business, really. As far as Damian was concerned, Timothy could tell whoever he wanted about their family secret . He wasn’t going to be one to tell any of his siblings what they could or could not do, not anymore at least. He had long since grown out of that stage unless he was messing with them. Besides, Bernard was good for Timothy in a way that Damian would never know if Conner Kent had been. A relic of a different past, one before the Wayne had been added with a hyphen onto Drake who had gotten to know Timothy before Robin . They were all grateful, Damian was sure, that Timothy had someone in his life, now, that could help remind him that he was someone beyond the mask. 

“I’m good,” Timothy reassured, but Damian saw the tick in his jaw, the way he centered his shoulders, and swung himself out of the car. And Bernard saw it too, if the way he held Damian’s gaze in the rearview told him anything. “You ready to surprise your boyfriend, Romeo?” Timothy went for teasing, but it fell a bit flat. 

Or perhaps it only fell flat for Damian because, while it might be fun to rile Timothy up, Damian knew him. There were only so many times that you could lay bleeding out in the arms of another person before you really got to know them and Damian was pretty sure that he was intimately aware of each of his siblings in a way no one else on earth ever would be. 

That being said, no, Damian was certainly not ready to surprise his boyfriend. “What if he says no?” He grumbled nervously, dutifully stepping out of the way as Bernard finally joined them, wire framed sunglasses firmly over his tanned cheeks and fingers already linking easily through Timothy’s. 

“Then he’s an idiot.” Bernard stated clearly and confidently. 

Timothy rolled his eyes but nudged Damian’s shoulder with his own. “We sic Dick on him.” 

Damian’s lips twitched into a reluctant ghost of a smile. “He’s not going to say no.” 

“I know that,” Timothy winked. “Do you ?” 

Damian did know that. He knew it in the way Jon carefully avoided the topic of Prom and the fact that Jordan getting back together with Sarah meant that he was going to be either stuck at home by himself or playing painful third wheel, again , to his twin and friend. He knew it in the way that Damian knew Jon was important. The kind of important that Damian had never really had before. The sort of important that reached into his chest cavity and tore off a piece of his heart to carry around in calloused, careful hands. 

“I think it’s sweet,” Bernard remarked casually, their steps making measured crunches on the gravel and grass beneath them as they walked closer to the Kent home’s front door. Either no one had seen them pull up, which was possible but doubtful considering the family that lived there, or they were listening in on their conversation. Damian hadn’t thought to clear his plan with Clark or Lois and, belatedly, he realized that that could be a bigger problem than he had originally prepared. “It’s that rom-com, Hallmark movie shit I always dreamt Tim would pull with me.” 

“You want to live on a farm?”

Damian had it on good authority, if he could call his father good authority , that Clark didn’t dislike him. Selina had patted his back once after she had accompanied Father to a dinner and told him that he had apparently won over Lois Lane just by using basic manners (and Damian was sure that not obviously sneaking around with her son had helped too). And Damian was pretty sure Clark and Lois would have a bigger problem in Richard if they decided they didn’t approve of him. But he didn’t think it would be a problem. 

Then again, Damian didn’t think a lot of things would be a problem until they became a problem and then he was stuck kicking himself for failing to notice. “ No ,” Bernard argued. “I wanted you to sweep me off my feet. Show up in some grand romantic gesture, break up with your pretty supermodel girlfriend and declare that you had always loved me and only wanted to dance with me at prom.” 

“Steph could kick your ass.” 

“I said she’s a supermodel, not that she’s not a badass.”

“Imagine Stephanie as a supermodel.” Damian snorted and Timothy laughed, that snorting, snicker that he only let out when he was teasing someone that wasn’t around to hear it. 

“So,” Bernard said and rocked back and forth on his heels. “What’s my role here?” 

“Hmm?” Timothy hummed. 

“Well… you’re obviously playing big brother who is here to fool the parents into thinking they’re getting supervised. Damian’s our dashing rom-com lead, and Jon’s playing the humble prince about to get swept off his feet.” Bernard listed seriously and it had its desired effect in causing a small, fond smile to spread over Timothy’s cheeks. He hadn’t been to the Kent Farm - to Kansas - since Conner’s funeral. “What’s my role here? Am I the… handsome chauffeur?”

“You’re not driving my car.” 

Bernard rocked to the side, his shoulder knocking gently into Timothy’s. “The comic relief?” 

“You’d have to be funny for that.” Damian remarked dryly, trading a barely concealed fist bump with Timothy behind Bernard’s back. 

Bernard played along, though, seemingly all too happy to add to the distraction that their conversation was being. He was good at it, Damian decided as they stepped onto the porch. He was good at wrangling the two of them in a way that made them not feel manipulated. Maybe it was because Bernard had known Timothy for longer than Timothy had been a Wayne, or maybe it was because Damian wasn’t quite as different from his brother as he liked to pretend. Either way, he was found himself inexplicably grateful that Bernard Dowd had come along, even if he had been rather annoying the majority of the car ride over. “I am wounded , little-Wayne.” Damian wrinkled his nose at the moniker. “Just for that, I’m going to declare myself the villain, out to keep the two star-crossed lovers apart.” 

“He’s seventeen, Bernie,” Timothy pointed out with a disgruntled heir to his eyes. 

“I didn’t say I’d date him, Timmy,” Bernard snorted. 

Damian knocked on the door with a roll of his eyes and let their bickering fall into background noise, his nerves swirling deep in the pit of his stomach. This was going to go badly, he just knew it. The fact remained that good things, truly good and happy moments in his life, were usually tainted by the bad. He couldn’t have one without the other. And if this went wrong, it wasn’t just Damian’s night that he would be ruining but the effort his siblings had put into him getting a night off as well. 

Clark opened the door, a welcoming smile on his face, something almost wistful in his eyes, hidden behind glasses that did nothing for him. “Damian,” He greeted warmly, opened his arms as though he was about to wrap him up in a fatherly embrace, and then thought better of it, offering him a hand to grip with his own instead. The staircase behind him creaked, Jordan Kent beamed down at him and wiggled his fingers in hello. “Tim….” Clark’s voice started strong and then trailed off awkwardly. 

Silence permeated and Damian was the first to step inside when Clark moved out of the way. The Kent home was familiar to him in the same way that Titans Tower was. A third home, maybe. Some place that Damian was intimately familiar with, only it wasn’t from playing video games in the living room or practicing recipes in the kitchen with Rachel. It was as familiar as the press of Jon’s lips against his skin - a familiarity that came with a heat that traveled slow and steady up his spine and had him straightening and tuning out whatever tense greeting was going on behind him. 

He would apologize later, Damian decided, bounding towards the staircase and stopping only when Jordan grabbed a hold of his wrist. He pointedly looked down at the fingers curled around his skin but Jordan didn’t let go or pay the gaze any attention. “I thought you were going on a mission this weekend.” He didn’t sound all that bothered that Damian was in his house and surprising his twin instead, though. 

“I was meant to be.” Damian didn’t dislike Jordan Kent, but only because Jordan didn’t really do anything for Damian to dislike him. Sure, he wouldn’t call himself Superboy 2.0’s biggest fan, he wasn’t even close to claiming that title, but he didn’t hate him. He didn’t particularly enjoy spending time with him, but Damian had spent a lot of time around people a lot worse. 

That didn’t mean Jordan had any right to be touching him, though. “He’s going to be really surprised.” 

“Oh?” It stopped him short, though, the way in which Jordan accepted him. If Jordan had any trouble accepting the fact that Damian Wayne was dating his brother, he never showed it. It was the same blanket trust that Clark laid out to anyone Father considered family. If Jon trusted Damian then Jordan would as well. 

Jordan shrugged. “He’s been bummed about not being able to go,” he supplied even though Damian didn’t ask. “But he hasn’t, like, complained about it or anything.” He gnawed on his bottom lip, a trait that Damian deliriously realized that Jon did too. “He’s always quiet about things that bother him.” 

“He’s used to it not mattering.” 

Jordan flushed and squeezed Damian’s wrist once before dropping it, shoving his hands into his jean pockets with a glower at the hardwood floor. “Yeah,” he said with a scowl. “I’ve noticed that too.” 

Damian didn’t really know what to say to that. The relationship between Jordan and Jon was so incredibly different than the one that Damian had with his own siblings that he found himself, instead, chewing on his cheek and trying to muster up the courage to step around his boyfriend’s twin and over to his bedroom. “Dami,” Timothy called from the bottom of the stairs and when Damian glanced back at him he was only looking at him with that all-knowing Red Robin stare. The one that said I’ve got your back . The one that had sent Timothy fighting his grandfather more than once for Damian to remain in Gotham. “He’s not going to say no.” 

Jordan looked back up at him, the same way Jon looked at him - through his eyelashes and with the same wicked expression painting his face (and it wasn’t that Damian could forget that they were twins, it was just that they weren’t identical and Jon was the entire world where Jordan was sometimes just a dictionary that Damian was given to help understand it). “Hey, Jon!” 

Damian’s heart jumped into his throat and he had only a moment to register the fact that Bernard wasn’t subtly filming on his phone (no doubt to embarrass Damian in the family group chat) and the way Timothy’s eyes flashed in entertainment before he was spinning back around, his heart pounding hard enough in his chest that it felt like Damian had just survived a one-on-one fight against his grandfather’s best fighters. Which was ridiculous, really. Damian had survived fights . Damian had nearly died . More than once! This was nothing. Going to Prom was nothing . 

“What’s up?” 

Oh he was screwed . 

If Damian didn’t already know he was screwed, that Jonathan Kent had irrevocably ruined whatever tough persona Damian had carefully crafted around himself he would have only been an idiot not to notice it then. He wasn’t sleep rumpled, but he wasn’t put together, either. He was floating somewhere in the in between, his hair a mess of fluffy curls at the top of his head, his sweatshirt a size too big and proclaiming the Daily Planet logo across the center. His feet were bare, but wrapped in socks that had seen better days but were patterned with toast. Jon blinked and Jordan smirked and Damian had blurted out, “Prom?” Before he could even stop to think of saying literally anything else. 

He was just lucky it was in English. 

“What?” 

Damian swallowed and opened his mouth, words escaping him as he shrugged helplessly. Timothy coughed into his hands, something that sounded strangely like pathetic . Damian glared at him over his shoulder, Bernard winked behind his phone, and he turned back to Jon, who was staring at him looking rather concerned (and confused, but Damian hated to say that he liked the way concern looked on him but he did. It softened all of him, made Damian more inclined to do something like wrap him in his arms and never let him go). “I know you have a suit.” 

“Oh my god,” Bernard whispered like he couldn’t believe the fact that he was witnessing Damian Wayne fail at being suave. 

“I am so confused.” Jon muttered. 

“Dude,” Jordan snorted, planted a hand firm in the middle of his brother’s back, and shoved him none-too-gently forward. “He’s asking you to prom.” 

“He’s what ?” Jon stumbled, but obligingly walked the rest of the way, staring for a moment over Damian’s shoulder at their audience, his ears reddening at the tips. “You’re what?” He asked softer, not quite soft enough for his father or brother to miss it, but soft enough to give them the air of privacy. 

“I thought it was rather obvious.” Damian said just as softly, even though he was well aware that it was anything but obvious. 

“You have that… mission.” 

“You want to go.” Damian said it like the fact it was. He did have a mission, but Jon had wanted to go to Prom and damn him if what Jon wanted wasn’t more important than anything else in the universe. 

“ Awe ,” Bernard said from below. 

Jon’s eyes flitted over his face for a moment more and Damian held his breath, certain this thing that he thought for sure was going to be an enthusiastic yes had turned into a giant miscalculation. 

And then he had an arm around his shoulders, and another around his waist, and a body melting perfectly and familiar into his own, a nose nuzzling into the space between his shoulder and neck and a smile pressed firmly into his skin. “I love you,” Jon mumbled and there was no way that the others didn’t hear it but Damian had nearly missed it himself, what with the way his heart was pounding and his head was floating. 

He had heard those words before, he had even said them a few times (to Richard, to Father, to Mother, to Cassandra), and yet they had never felt like a confession until that moment. They had never felt so true and yet so infitismal to what he was feeling himself. Damian knew what love was, he felt it every single day with his family, but this was something bigger. Something more. Something…. He made a noise, a small one that was perhaps more like a happy sigh and hugged back, just as hard and happy. 

--

Lois Lane didn’t cry when they were taking pictures by the front door, but Clark Kent did, wiping at his eyes every few seconds and apologizing profusely whenever one of his children caught him at it. Timothy took a few better, more professional looking shots than the parents, startled only for a moment when Lois asked him softly to send them to her before agreeing, and then shuffled them all out to his car with barely a wave over his shoulder. When they stepped outside, though, the tension dropped from his brother’s shoulders, Bernard took up his residence at Timothy’s side once more, and Damian couldn’t bring himself to pay much attention to anything other than the way the soft charcoal suit Jon had dug out from his closet brought out the blue in his eyes rather magnificently. 

Sarah Cushing was dressed in an emerald green number, her lace covered arm slipping effortlessly through Jordan’s, her dress hiked up just enough so that she could stumble over the rocks towards the car her father was parked in. She had smiled like she had known Damian’s plan all along and stood up on tip-toes to kiss his cheek, carefully avoiding smudging her lipstick on his skin when she had noticed him in the Kent’s den. “Well, don’t you all look nice.” Mrs. Cushing greeted enthusiastically, wrapping both of the Kent boys up in tight, welcoming hugs. “Damian, it’s so lovely that you could make it all the way out here for tonight.” 

It didn’t sound anything like it, but the echo of I love you still bounced around his head enough that Damian found he was only able to let out a simple, “Thank you,” rather than his normal attempt at charm. 

There was a moment of introduction, Timothy wavering on his self control and Bernard taking over, charming enough for the two of them, and then they were off, Damian back in the cool leather of the rental car’s seats, Jon’s hand heavy and solid in his own, and the words he was unable to say back twisting his tongue. It surprisingly wasn’t Timothy that got out of the car to bid them goodnight, but Bernard, his expression lacking the veneer of confidence he had been wearing all day, fingers nervously toying with his sunglasses as he hooked them into the collar of his shirt. “Listen, if… if you two need us to come back early or you decide not to stay at the hotel tonight just… just call Tim and we’ll be here as fast as he can manage.” 

Damian would have wondered where the nerves were coming from, but he understood the warning well enough. 

They were in Kansas, not Gotham. Jon had been having trouble with some people at school already. Damian was confident he could take the majority of Smallville in a fight, but he felt better knowing that Timothy would be there to have his back if he needed it. 

“Keep an eye on him,” Damian advised, softly, his eyes drifting to where Timothy was staring sightlessly out at the hotel grounds that was hosting the Prom. 

Bernard softened, his hand clapping Damian’s shoulder once, fondly but strong. “Keep an eye on him , Romeo.” He nodded at Jon, who was posing with his arm around Jordan’s waist, Mrs. Cushing snapping pictures at the entrance. “I know you Waynes can handle yourselves but he’s not a Wayne.” 

“No,” Damian agreed. “He’s a Kent.” And I love him, Damian thought, I love him, I love him, I love him.

--

“I can’t believe you did this.” 

Jon had been saying it all through the night - the mediocre dinner, the even more mediocre dessert, in moments of breathless happiness as he introduced Damian to his teammates. There was Hugh, the pitcher, and his girlfriend Kira. There was Ernie, the outfielder, and his date but not girlfriend Trisha. There was Denny and his partner, Juliana. The eight of them were at their own table, Jordan sitting with Sarah with some of her friends from choir, but he had been flitting between tables the entire night until Sarah had dragged him out to the dance floor. “I would do anything for you.” Damian hoped he heard the promise in them. The reassurance. The way they rung true. 

He supposed it would be accurate to say that Jon melted . Or so that was the only way that Damian found to explain the change in his expression. He brushed a thumb over Damian’s cheekbone, over a scar Damian knew had been there most of his life, and leaned in closer, his breath dancing over Damian’s lips before kissing him, hand curling over the back of his neck, fingers teasing at the ends of Damian’s hair. It would have gone further, could have, if they were in a different setting. As it was, there were chaperones, and more than one person in attendance had already snapped pictures of the two of them throughout the evening (and it would, no doubt, be all over the gossip sites and magazines in the morning). Damian shifted closer anyway, even as they pulled apart, his thigh outlining the outside of Jon’s leg, his thumb rubbing over the material of his suit pants, smoothing over and over and over, his lips pressing a soft, barely there kiss to the skin under his eye. I love you too , he thought about saying. “Would you like to dance?” He asked instead and Jon smiled, bright and clear and unsurprised in his surprise. 

Still, he stood up, fixed his jacket with a practiced hand and followed Damian out to the floor. “They’re not going to be up to par to the gala’s you’ve been to.” He cautioned uselessly. 

“I don’t care,” Damian reassured. 

It was the middle of a slower number, and they were on the outskirts of the dance floor, other couples swaying artlessly to the hum of music that crooned from the speakers. There was a DJ, an alum of Smallville that hadn’t left the small town once he graduated, and the lights were dimmed, but not dim enough that the chaperones couldn’t see what was happening on the dance floor. Damian had already seen three couples get broken up during a heated makeout session that threatened to become something more, and another several students get busted for sneaking in alcohol. 

Jon was right, anyway, it wasn’t anything on par with a gala. For one, the music was much too loud and much too manufactured. Every gala Damian had been to had a live band and much better food. Very few students knew how to do any actual dance aside from the kind that one could do to faster music. Too many people had their phones out, too many were laughing loudly and with their entire bodies, too many girls had discarded their shoes in order to go barefoot for the rest of the night once pictures were over. 

But god , Damian was having fun. 

Jon’s friends from the baseball team were fun . Sarah kept making jokes that verged on the edge of dirty all night, Jon kept a part of himself touching Damian at all times, and here, for the first time in a very long time, Damian was simply Damian . He wasn’t Robin either. He wasn’t expected to catalog every threat and every potential way the night could shift. Jon’s friends didn’t balk at his name, the chaperones didn’t look at him like he was anything other just another student, his phone wasn’t vibrating with an alert for danger. 

He could dance like anyone else here, sloppily and without finesse, simply pressing close and pulling closer, a hand under the bottom of Jon’s jacket and settling against the small of his back, another tracing a line up his spine. He could breathe the same air, trace the line of his throat with his nose, press his lips to the hinge of his jaw. There was a hint of something unspoken between them, something that felt more real and whole the longer Damian spent not examining it. “Hey,” Ernie swayed over to them, arms wrapped sillily around both Hugh and Kira. “The chaperones are looking real closely at you two.” He warned and Damian’s brow twitched upwards in question. 

Kira giggled but shrugged. “You’re both still PG but you might be edging too close to PG-13 for them.” 

“Thanks,” Jon mumbled and he had taken a small step back, an inch between them rather than the shared breathing space they had moments before. 

Ernie glowered. “You’re not even doing anything that bad. It’s not like you’re having sex on the floor or something -.” Damian’s cheeks colored and Jon choked on a laugh, his hand smoothing off Damian’s shoulder to squeeze at the bridge of his nose, his neck firetruck red at the insinuation. 

“Smooth, Ernie,” Hugh muttered. 

“Well, they’re not !”

“That would be a scandal.” Damian scoffed under his breath. Jon snorted, and without thinking, pressed a quick peck to the corner of Damian’s mouth and…. 

“Get a room.” A shoulder slammed into the center of Damian’s back and he stumbled, Jon’s hands steady on his waist to keep him on his feet. 

“ Watch it, man.” Ernie snapped, his hand reaching out to grab Damian’s upper arm. 

But he caught himself quickly enough, straightened up to his full height and glanced over his shoulder. “Go back to your country.” The other boy said, sharp and cruel. It was nothing Damian hadn’t heard a thousand times before - from little old ladies and men with enough money that they thought it bought them a certain lack of morals. It didn’t bother him, not anymore than it used to, and Damian didn’t let the words sting the way they once had. Bigots were everywhere and they were always more than willing to ruin a good night. Damian had learned long ago not to let them have that honor. 

“What did you say?” Except Jon apparently had not, and a hush fell over their corner of the dance floor at the sharpness of his tone. A chaperone turned towards them, Jordan turned towards them (carefully in tune with the sound of his brother’s voice, or the rhythm of his heart, or any number of things that Damian didn’t know to look out for). 

“Jon,” Damian cautioned softly, smoothing his thumb around the heat of Jon’s back. “It’s fine.” 

“No, it’s not fine .” Jon snapped, although perhaps it wasn’t at Damian because that anger seemed unwarranted for the situation. That anger didn’t seem like it was born out of two comments. “You don’t get to say that to him.” 

It wasn’t often that Damian had seen Jon angry. Annoyed, frustrated, hurt, yes. Angry, no. Jon was probably the best person aside from Jason that Damian knew at masking his anger. He didn’t let it consume him the way Damian let his own. Anger wasn’t a base emotion for Jon, but one that showed up when he was pushed to a very specific limit. Perhaps it was because of that that Damian let Jon pull him back and step in front of him (even though, if a fight were to break out, Damian was the better trained out of the two of them). “Hey -.” Jordan stepped forward and then was shoved roughly back. 

Ah , Damian noted. These were the old teammates. The ones that made Jon’s life so incredibly difficult after they had been outed. The ones that muttered slurs, that hid his clothes, that told their coach they were uncomfortable sharing a locker room with someone like him. 

The thing was, if Jon was protective over Damian, then he was much more protective over Jordan . Which was only funny because neither of them needed much protection. Still, Jordan stumbled, Sarah catching his arm, and the one speaking said something about taking it up the ass and Jon was executing a rather perfect and efficient right cross right into the guy’s nose. Damian saw it break, saw the moment the chaperone’s lunged forward, saw the way the other boy lost consciousness for only a second, falling backwards into his friends, dazed as though he hadn’t expected Jon to strike at all. Distantly, Damian recognized the punch as one that probably shouldn’t have caused that much damage. Jon was strong, but he wasn’t that strong. 

Still, it was about to be chaos and chaos would ruin a previously good night and so Damian wrapped a strong and steady arm around Jon’s waist and heaved him backwards. The music shut off completely, the lights flickered on, the other boy’s teammates jumped forward and Jordan, Ernie and Hugh formed a wall between them. 

“You need to calm down.” Damian muttered against the shell of Jon’s ear, wincing at the particular strength in the hand that wrapped around his wrist. “ Jon ,” He emphasized when Jon’s breath failed to stutter back into normalcy. “ Calm down.” His bones creaked and he winced, louder this time, loud enough that it pulled Jon out of wherever it was he had disappeared to. 

He blinked, released Damian’s wrist and slumped back, for a moment, against his chest. “Oh god,” he moaned as it all seemed to come back to him. “What did I do ?” 

“Mister Kent,” a chaperone snapped. 

“Hallway.” Sarah ordered. 

Damian thought it was all rather dramatic for one measly punch. 

Plus, as far as he was concerned, while he wouldn’t have thrown it, it wasn’t as though the asshole hadn’t deserved the broken nose. 

Still, he did as he was told, his arm still wrapped tightly around Jon’s front and pulled him out to the hallway. He let him slump against the wall, let him slide all the way down until he was sitting against carpet, his hands burying in his perfectly styled curls and tugging at them relentlessly. “Are you okay?” Damian was so preoccupied with Jon (with the way his knuckles weren’t red and bruising, but instead at the way his hands were shaking, the adrenaline crashing down around him), that it took him a moment to realize that Sarah was asking him the question. 

“I’m fine.” He reassured as the door crashed open, a chaperone stomping out in their direction, Jordan rushing beside her, frantically telling her that it was provoked! That guy’s been saying nasty stuff all year and none of you have done anything to stop him!  

Damian crouched in front of him, the fabric of his suit pulling at the knees, and gently tugged his right hand away from where it clenched uselessly at his hair. “Jonathan.” He muttered. 

His eyes were swimming with unshed tears, although Damian was pretty sure it wasn’t for the punch, but for the dramatics of the night. Or maybe it was for every other time that boy had said something and Jon had just let the words pierce his skin. “I ruined the night,” he mumbled, miserable even as Damian pulled him closer, fingers smoothing over the strands Jon had been pulling relentlessly at moments before, pressing Jon’s face into his chest. “You did all of this and I ruined it.” 

Timothy wouldn’t be far away. Damian could call him, he knew he could even without Bernard reassuring him of that fact earlier in the night. He hummed instead of reassurance. “This is far from the worst night I’ve ever had.” Damian settled with and Jon laughed, a choked off, bitter thing. 

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” 

“Did punching him?” 

He expected a no, if he were to be honest. Jon wasn’t the vindictive sort. But the muffled, “Yes,” seemed fitting as well. 

“You two are done for the night!” The chaperone snapped. “I’m calling your parents and you’re going home. The principal will be hearing about this on Monday.” 

“And what of his parents?” Damian asked over Jon’s head. 

The chaperone blinked. “Excuse me?” 

“What was that asshole’s name?” He asked Jordan with a wave of his hand. 

“Vernon.” Sarah answered with venom in her voice. 

“Vernon. Is Vernon done for the night too?” 

“ Vernon will probably have to go to the ER.” The chaperone said shortly, her phone slapping against the palm of her hand. “You’re lucky he won’t press charges.” 

“You mean that you’re lucky I’m not planning on taking this up with our lawyers.” Damian drew on every ounce of Timothy’s insolence that he could muster. He remembered watching his Father bluff his way through a negotiation with thousands of planets. Damian had fought and won against people much more scary than the Smallville school system and he was a Wayne . That came with a certain amount of pull that he wasn’t too ashamed to use to his advantage. “Vernon has been harassing my boyfriend since we were outed without our consent enough that Jon had to quit the football team all while your administration has done nothing to protect its students from bullying.” 

“Damian -.” Jon pulled away sharply and fixed him with a wide eyed look. 

“I am going to tell you what we’re going to do -.” 

“Mister Wayne -.” The chaperone said with purpling cheeks. 

“We are going to leave the party for the night, we are going to check into our hotel room here . You can call Jonathan in for a discussion of what happened tonight on Monday only if Vernon is also going to be facing punishment for his past transgressions. And if I find out that he is not , you will be having a very long and unpleasant conversation with my father, is that understood?” 

She pressed her lips into a very tight line, the redness in them disappearing completely into a thin, white line and then she nodded and spun on her heel to walk away. 

Jon tugged on his sleeve. “Dami…” 

“What?” Damian turned back to him, eyebrow high on his forehead. “Too much?” He cocked his head to the side and smiled a goofy little smile, the one that always made Jon’s eyes sparkle. 

He laughed, a hushed, slightly wet noise, and then laughed louder, tilting his head back against the wall and draping a hand over his eyes. “Are you okay?” Jordan knelt beside them, running a hand over his brother’s shoulder. 

Jon simply laughed again, until the rest of them were laughing too. 

--

Technically , if anyone asked, Damian and Jon were not spending the night at the hotel alone. Perhaps he was hoping that no one bothered to ask, but he knew his siblings were at least aware of the plans. Timothy had booked two rooms at the hotel, one under his name and one under Damian’s, but he had tossed Jordan the room key before driving off. So technically, they had adult supervision. Technically, Jordan and Sarah were going back to Sarah’s house. Technically, technically, technically. 

It was hard to think technically when they had the room to themselves. 

Staying in a hotel room wasn’t exactly a novelty to Damian. He had stayed in plenty of hotel rooms his entire life, in other countries and a few times even in Gotham. But staying in one with only one bed while he was sharing a room with someone he had just threatened to sue a school for wasn’t exactly something he had ever done before. Damian wouldn’t exactly say he was nervous , but he was… anticipatory. 

Alone time wasn’t something they were granted all that much unless it was in the quiet hours of the night while everyone else was sleeping and while they had done… some stuff, they hadn’t done… a lot of stuff. Which was probably why Damian’s cheeks were on fire when Jon opened his wallet to grab the keycard Damian had hastily shoved in there hours before and a condom that Damian hadn’t packed fell out and onto the floor. 

Jon choked, Damian stared down at the little plastic square like it had personally betrayed him and cursed every single one of his siblings but especially Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne. 

“I didn’t…” 

“Did you…” 

They both trailed to a stop and, cheeks flaming still, Damian bent down to retrieve it, stuffing it hastily in his pants pocket. “So…” The door clicked shut behind them. “Are we going to talk about the fact that that punch was definitely stronger than your usual?” 

Jon shrugged out of his suit jacket and threw it over the back of the desk chair and Damian winced at his own question - the subject change wasn’t his most tasteful. “Are we going to talk about the fact that you had a condom in your wallet?” 

“Touche…” He muttered and shrugged out of his own jacket, laying it down gently on the bed beside his hip. 

“Or about you threatening to sue the school?” 

“You already won.” 

Jon hummed and kicked off his shoes. “Were you having a good time?” He asked nervously, his tie fumbling between his fingers. 

Damian cocked his head at him. “I’m still having a good time.” 

Jon rolled his bottom lip between his teeth. “Want to have a better time?” 

Something stirred in the pit of his stomach and Damian swallowed around the sudden dryness in his throat. “Wh… what do you have in mind?” 

He fought bigger people than Jonathan Kent. And they had done things before. This wasn’t entirely new territory. 

Jon placed his right knee beside Damian’s left, and swung his left over his right, and Damian’s hands found a home on his waist, over the expanse of his back. “It seems like a shame to waste having a little privacy….” His breath ghosted over Damian’s lips, his tongue brushing out to tease them before, instead, he placed a kiss to the base of his throat. “And you do have a condom.” 

“I…” It was impossible to think in full sentences, even harder to think in English, the anticipation traveling up his spine like hellfire. “Are you sure?” 

“I am if you are?” 

Jon was beautiful, was the thing. He was beautiful and perfect and everything Damian had ever wanted and would ever want again. Damian stared into his eyes, into the gold that speckled in them like sparks of sunlight, at the freckles that dotted his skin, at the way his curls fell haphazardly over his forehead. “I love you.” He whispered in the space between them and Jon’s lips stretched wide into a smile. 

“I love you too.” 

--

If it was the last moment they got to spend together, Damian would be glad that it was a happy memory. He would treasure it for as long as he lived. 

Even if that was only for another week.